Out of Time
by Hitomi Zotz
Summary: In one moment Melina loses everyone she loves to a creature that shouldn't exist. Crossing through lights for escape she finds herself in an unfamilar world. Chasing after Helen, Cutter & co hear a human voice in a time before man. With no way back, Melina finds herself trying to prevent a bleak future whilst dealing with a violent past but what if she changes Cutter & co' present.
1. Chapter 1- Devils in the Water

Goue Vlaktes National Park, South Africa

It was just after three in the afternoon, the sun was a little lower in the sky but the air still blazed with a sticky heat. It was the perfect excuse for taking a dip in the pond as Melina Hollywell's friends and siblings kept insisting. As they were visiting the national park Melina worked at she had insisted on completing her work for the day first. Four of their group of seven were staying on the park grounds in a wooden cabin at a reduced cost thanks to Melina. It was one of several cabins rented out by the park.

They had wrapped up a morning of seeing the sights and some of what the safari workers did on a daily basis with Melina's co-worker, top tour guide Abel Ralston, providing some interesting sights most visitors could only dream about. The afternoon had been spent at the safari park headquarters by the group minus Melina, who carried out her main duties of checking the hyenas, the jackals, and the African Wild Dogs. They had spotted hyenas but were also lucky enough to have a family of brown hyenas, which were the rarest of the species.

Melina had rejoined her friends half an hour ago and had finally given into their requests to go the pond that was a well known spot for park workers to cool off when on a break. It was one of those rare spots that was considered predator and pest free. Of course there was no guarantee.

"Alright Melina," her good friend Amy Young called with a smile, "enough work already, let's swim!"

Melina glanced over at the blonde and smiled back.

Amy Young was someone who initially gave the impression of being out of their depth in the African wilderness but she had embraced every experience of it. Finding a larger than wanted spider in the bathroom, Amy had been the one to safely remove it whilst Todd Gardner and Beth Brook had squealed and tremored in the background. Amy was a tough cookie but also a bright, merry person who could instantly light up a room.

"Aw shucks Amy we didn't bring our swimming gear," Todd taunted, "guess we'll all have to go as nature intended."

The brunette boy winked followed by a snicker as Amy, Beth and Melina's younger sister Phoebe all frowned over at him.

Amy gestured outwards with both hands. "Are you missing this weather Todd? It's roasting, I'm sure we can take a dip with our clothes on and dry out just fine after," she retorted. She spun round to emphasise her point sending her pale blonde hair in all directions. "God it might be boiling but I still love this weather," she marvelled.

Melina grinned as she spied her older brother Kaden watching Amy quietly with a small smile.

"Alright guys I think we're all in agreement," Sean Rivers piped up enthusiastically as he rested his hands on his hips and drew himself upright in mock self-importance, "swimming we shall go."

"No need to make a production of it Sean," Beth scorned him.

Melina laughed as Sean started to wag his finger at Beth in a scolding manner.

"Young lady I'm just making it clear so we know this decision came about democratically, I wouldn't want complaints later than we forced you women into the waters fully dressed," Sean retorted. His posh London accent only added to the effect of his words.

"Well we could still take a vote on the clothing," Todd piped up.

Phoebe hit him a playful smack on the back of his head. "Consider that a response on your vote," she mocked.

Todd winced at the blow and clapped a hand to the back of his head. "Hey that's intimidation you know!" he protested as his blue eyes darted to her with feigned anger. "Which means this isn't democratic!"

Phoebe rolled her eyes at this.

"Guys you are killing the atmosphere out here," Amy complained. "Less chat, more swimming and listening to nature. Come on, hear, feel it," she urged.

Amy raised a hand to her right ear, pushing back her hair as she did. Despite the heat somehow Amy managed to be immune to the curse of frizzy hair, something poor Beth had succumb to, forcing her to keep her dark hair up in a tight bun.

The group obeyed, sharing a moment of silence amongst themselves to take in the ambience of the world around them.

The air was full of sound. There was no traffic, no hum of people or cars, nothing like the fast paced, polluted streets of the English cities that most of them were used to. Here there were bird calls, the trumpet of an elephant in the distance, the chatter of zebras and even the low call of a hungry lion from somewhere out of sight.

Amy looked at Melina appreciatively and gave her a wide smile. "Thanks for bringing us here," she said sincerely.

"Now who's ruining the ambience?" Todd quipped sardonically.

Phoebe gave him a gentle shove. "Who's ruining the mood?" she retorted with equal taunt.

Todd rubbed his arm. "This is brutality, definitely," he complained jovially.

Without warning, Todd grabbed Phoebe about the shoulders prompting a shriek from her as he rushed her in the direction of the pond.

The group watched as with a wave of limbs and some skidding on the dust, the pair careened over the edge together and into the pond with a loud splash.

Although it was deemed a pond it was a large enough body of water. Shallow at one edge, it had a maximum depth of approximately eight feet in the centre depending of course on the seasons. Although the day was warm there had been some summer showers before their arrival so the pond was a good depth today.

A few grey crowned cranes at the edge of the pond gave them disgruntled squawks but remained where they were as they seemed to know the humans weren't a threat.

Phoebe and Todd rose separately, Phoebe's face was indignant as she splashed in Todd's direction with a curse.

"You could have let me take my shoes off first!" Phoebe snapped.

Todd laughed. "Hey mine are still on too," he reminded her.

"Well that's the water broken," Sean said enthusiastically as he kicked off his trainers and bent down to tug off his socks, "and neither of them got eaten by a crocodile so it's time to jump in."

"Be careful," Melina cautioned, "it's only about eight feet deep, wouldn't want any of you breaking your neck with some unnecessary somersaults."

Sean turned to face Melina, while walking backwards to the pond as he did. "Ah my good hostess, we wouldn't want that on your conscience," he said with a grin, "but you think too highly of me and my gymnastic skills. I am a humble swimmer with only the doggy paddle at my dis-"

Sean was unable to finish his sentence as he took one step too many and found himself falling ungracefully backwards into the water.

Amy and Beth giggled at the display.

Amy turned a mischievous grin in Kaden's direction. "Come on Kaden, race you there," she suggested. "Beth baby count us down."

Amy whipped off her shades and abandoned them with her sandals and khaki jacket.

Beth nodded eagerly. "Alright, runners get set."

Kaden, stunned, suddenly flustered as he glanced from Amy to the pond and attempted to ready his feet.

"On three," Beth said firmly as she raised her right arm into the air. "One! Two! Three!" She swung her arm down dramatically.

Kaden and Amy both broken into a sprint.

Kaden moved like a true runner, arms pumping in time to his steps as he took lengthy strides. It was easy for him, he had done track running in high school and kept it up at college. He was well known back in England for his sprinting and had earned several medals. Yet it was one thing to have the skills and to know the track and quite another to do it off guard with a distracting blonde beauty for a competitor.

Kaden couldn't resist slipping a blue eyed stare in Amy's direction to see where she was.

Amy had had the closer start but she couldn't match Kaden's speed.

Kaden made himself slow up, unaware of how noticeable it was to his sister Melina. He waited, trying to time it in his head, not wanting to give Amy a win or rob her of a victory either. A tie would be fair.

The pair hit the water at almost the exact same time and it was impossible to tell who had hit the water first.

"Well I'm done waiting, let's go Melina!" Beth called.

Beth abandoned her shoes, hat, sunglasses and bag with Amy's belongings before she hastened to the pond enthusiastically.

Melina considered that they could have better prepared for it. Sure they had suntan lotion and bug spray on them but no towels and the ground was roasting, not exactly ideal for running in bare feet.

The young woman raised a hand to shield her grey-green eyes as she looked out to her friends and siblings. She smiled at the sight of them splashing around and giggling with one another.

It had been six months since they had all been together. Six months since Melina had gotten her placement out here. It had seemed like an easy decision on paper, leave England for a year to work in an actual safari park. She had spent time back home in zoos working with predatory animals- hyenas, coyotes, maned wolves and European wolves but it was nothing like this. Yet her love for animals wasn't enough to entirely wipe out her love for her friends and family. The safari park had kept her plenty busy but it was only when saw everyone now that she realised how much she had missed them.

Melina lowered her hand and moved to the pond with a grin, there was no point observing her friends when she could be enjoying the fun. She stepped up to the edge and crouched down, dipping her feet in first.

Kaden spied the glimmer of unease in his sister's eyes and swam towards her.

"It's okay," he assured as he gave her a calm stare. "Water's lovely and it's shallow here."

Melina nodded as she rested her hands on the edge and prepared to ease herself down. It wasn't that she disliked water per say it was just that she didn't think it was something that could be trusted. Any body of water could hold secrets, even ones crystal clear could have something down there burrowed beneath the sand or soil. Any body of water could be treacherous as well, even if it seemed calm there could be weeds to tangle people or a sudden dip or slope.

Melina shrugged off her unease and pushed herself forward, trusting her brother's judgement. She would stick to the shallow bit.

The water shocked Melina slightly as she slipped in despite being a pleasant temperature. She kicked down instinctively, needing to feel earth below. Her feet brushed against dirt before she recoiled her toes, suddenly fearful of what else might be there. She bobbed about unsteadily, flinching when her brother's hand suddenly gripped her right arm.

"Remember what we practised," he murmured.

Melina nodded, thinking back to the lessons she had shared back home under her brother's supervision.

For a few moments Melina bobbed about, attempting an awkward breast stroke. She was so caught up in it she didn't notice the change. It was Phoebe who picked up on it.

Phoebe, out in the middle of the pond with Todd, tensed up suddenly and looked about in confusion. "Guys isn't it kind of quiet?" she quipped.

Todd smirked at her. "You mean we aren't yelling enough?" he joked.

Phoebe shook her head nervously as she moved about the pond slowly, glancing around with unease. "Those birds have gone," she murmured.

"Good," Todd enthused, "I didn't-"

Todd didn't get to finish his sentence as the sudden rush of water shooting upwards drowned him out.

The pond surface came to life, churning and frothing as a huge black serpent came shooting out of it. Todd was lost in a rush of blackness. He was confused as his lungs filled with water and his neck suddenly roared in pain. His mind screamed in panic and he couldn't even fathom what was happening as his body tumbled about in a cloud of reddening water.

Phoebe had no time to react as she found herself surrounded by a mass of black scales belonging to a body so wide and long it seemed to fill the pond. She saw the eyes that seemed directed at her, emotionless and gleaming brown, to the owner this wasn't personal, it harboured nothing towards her except a need for food. In that moment Phoebe felt her mortality as she realised she had in an instant been stripped of her humanity and reduced to prey.

In the commotion the pond itself seemed to have gained a current which drew everyone inwards towards the devil serpent.

Melina couldn't think. There was suddenly too much noise. Everyone was screaming. The water had been frothing like a geyser and even now it still bubbled. She glimpsed red colouring it and knew it was blood but she didn't know whose.

She saw a face, serpentine with a brown reptilian eye that glimpsed her way as the head moved past her getting closer to Phoebe. Melina's mind wanted to suggest snake but it was bigger than any she had ever seen or known to exist. Its body brushed against her, large enough to hurt as it moved with a frightening speed. The force pushed her down under the water and suddenly she had another problem.

Kaden saw his sister Phoebe turn blue. He heard her breaths for life become forced out whimpers and then he heard the loud crack that broke her ribcage. He tried to move to her but there was too much snake and its body was too formidable to pass. He looked about anxiously for anything that could help and glimpsed Melina going under.

Kaden turned an angst ridden stare back to Phoebe and his face blanched as he saw blood spatter out of her mouth.

Kaden took a breath and plunged under the water. He couldn't look at Phoebe, it couldn't be real, it wasn't possible! He couldn't even figure out what the hell was happening. He told himself to focus on Melina.

Melina found herself caught in a sudden suction without warning. Something was pulling her down, dragging her to a watery death. Wide eyed and terrified she looked for the source and was immediately awe struck.

It was like the water had been shattered somehow. Brilliant particles of white, diamond shaped lights were dancing at the bottom of the pond. It was mesmerising and beautiful and completely impossible. She wondered if it was a hallucination brought about from drowning as it drew her in.

Kaden saw it too as he found himself helpless to the same force of suction. He watched in horror as Melina went towards it and vanished.

Kaden couldn't understand. Melina wasn't in the lights, she was simply gone. He found himself getting closer to the lights and suddenly his body tingled as he passed into them. He couldn't even explain the sensation he felt. For a moment there was only a blinding white light and a sensation like he was crossing through water and yet not water, something warmer and thicker, like liquid metal might feel perhaps, it was strange but it didn't last long.

Kaden felt a shudder as the water temperature changed slightly and the feeling of suction passed. Desperate for air he didn't think, he just move instinctively up.

Kaden broke the surface with a gasp that turned into a cry of surprise. The dusty gold surroundings of plains was gone, replaced instead by a variety of greens from jungle foliage.

"What the hell is this?" he gasped.

"Kaden!"

Kaden turned at the cry and saw Melina just as confused as she tried hard not to flail in the water in a moment of panic.

Kaden moved towards her with a hard, fast shoulder stroke, determined to get to her as soon as he could. They were still in some sort of pond only it was wider and murkier and looked like it was going to be harder to get out of. The banks of it were steep, raised up with long stems of grass and a few vines hanging over.

"Kaden don't!" Melina called back. "Your splashing it's going to attract something!"

Something. Melina wondered what the hell something was. Where were they? She wondered dumbly if they had died, had the light been a crossover of some sort? Well this sure as shit didn't seem like heaven but it wasn't quite how she expected hell to be either.

Kaden reached his sister's side. He was still pale and felt himself turning numb as he started to head into shock. He saw Phoebe's lips parting to spit out the red droplets of her fading life and shook his head to shake the image. It couldn't be real, none of this could. He figured he was hallucinating, dreaming maybe, was he drowning? Kaden didn't know, he was a good swimmer, it seemed unlikely but what else was going on?

Melina turned an anxious stare on her brother. Her murky grey-green eyes were entirely too wide and the whites almost filled them. "Kaden we need to get out of the water," she said quietly.

Kaden nodded agreeably although he wondered about the light show below that had delivered them here.

"Now," Melina insisted.

"Alright," Kaden attempted to sound soothing but his voice was harsh. He was just as frightened as his sister was.

Kaden gestured with one hand to the right where a sturdy vine looked like it was within reach. "Head for the vine," he ordered.

They moved together, trying to be calm in the water.

They were unaware of the predator moving below. Built for its surroundings, the Acherontisuchus was able to use its webbed feet to move through the water with ease. Its golden-green eyes had little difficulty in spying its prey through the murky clouds of disturbed dirt in the waters and although its sense of smell was lacking as it had its nostrils closed under the water its hearing still functioned well despite the water. Four times the size of its victims with four powerful feet to match their puny two, it knew it would be upon them in no time.

Melina glimpsed a ripple in the water and immediately speeded up. "Quick Kaden!" she urged her brother.

She thought of how fast the serpent had come upon them and knew subtly was out the window if it was here. A small voice tried to remind Melina that most water predators sensed vibrations and she was better sticking with calm over speed but her mind had finally given up on logic for panic. All she could see was that impossibly large, black, serpentine face.

Kaden moved quicker too, just as terrified of what might be in the waters with them as his sister. A brief thought of what might be there outside the pond ran through his head but he dismissed, he'd focus on that when he was there.

Melina reached the edge first and stretched up for the vine with a grunt. She grasped it in both hands but struggled to get her feet up to climb. Her feet kicked against soft earth, loosening into the water as they skidded back down.

"I can't get up!" Melina cried out in a panic.

Kaden felt the water moving beneath him again. He knew something was there. He looked to his sister with a serious stare, not daring to look down. He felt a current moving up and knew there was no time.

Kaden grasped his sister about the waist with both hands and pushed her up as hard and fast as he could. He felt his body slip down into the water and sputtered as it splashed into his nostrils and mouth.

Melina stretched up as her brother raised her and got a higher hold on the vine. It was enough for her to get her feet higher up and into a better hold against the dirt. This time she was able to dig them into the bank and get a foothold.

Melina climbed as quickly as she could but speed was impossible, the earth was loose and the vine was slick with damp. She gasped and grunted as she moved slower than she would have liked, terrified of slipping back down.

The top of the bank became visible, moist grass and earth. She reached out with her right hand, feeling a prickle of alarm as her fingers slipped through the earth and her hand threatened to slide over the edge.

As Melina got a hold of the surface at last and hoisted herself up she was suddenly shocked by a violent spray of water.

Melina shrieked in surprise and turned back to the pond with a look of horror.

She glimpsed the form only briefly. It was all teeth, a greenish-grey snout and a powerful jaw attached to a large body that was all tough muscle and mostly still concealed in the water. The jaws clamped around her brother and with a yell of agony and a spray of blood he was gone, dragged back to the murky darkness.

"KADEN!" Melina screamed into the water.

A rising puff of blood was her only response.


	2. Chapter 2- Time Traveler

"After her!" Claudia Brown gave what most of the soldiers thought was an obvious order.

As Captain Ryan broke into a sprint he raised his M4A1 Carbine rifle slightly in both hands, ready to turn the nozzle fast and fire if necessary. He thought it was easy for her to say, she hadn't set foot into one of these anomalies yet. It was always easy to give the order but a lot harder to follow it through when you knew it might mean danger.

Captain Ryan was aware of Nick Cutter just within his peripheral vision, sense forgotten over his estranged wife as usual. Emotional attachments, it was one of the many reasons why Ryan believed this should strictly be a military mission much as he liked Cutter.

Even though the giant crocodile beast that lay annihilated nearby and Helen Cutter taking advantage of the chaos to run through an anomaly had added some spice to the day, Captain Ryan sadly couldn't consider this day to be out of the ordinary anymore. Who would have thought serving as a soldier in the Gulf War would lead to this?

They cleared the lights of the anomaly. The sensation was instant. Ryan had yet to adjust that odd feeling of warmth of light that bathed him. It sounded nice on paper but to Ryan it was like crossing over, sending him and his men one step closer to death each time as they could never predict what might be on the other side.

The first sensation was humidity, extra unpleasant for someone in black combat gear. Black was good for the deserts but khaki was better for the jungle in Ryan's opinion. It was another problem with the anomalies, one could never predict the terrain they would be intruding into.

He saw Helen sprinting along through a cluster of large palm trees with ease.

The soldiers followed gamely, focused on their quarry but trying to keep their senses open to their surroundings.

Nick Cutter kept up the pace as he followed after his estranged wife. He was beginning to tire of her ability to be elusive even as a small part of him admired her ability to survive so capably in these different worlds. He couldn't comprehend why she refused to stay with them in the present and work with them on these anomalies. Sure there was a sense of being in a prison within the Home Office but that was only because Helen had a lot to explain to the Home Office officials, something she surely couldn't deny. Claudia and her boss Lester were bureaucrats, they weren't going to have Helen vanish into some unknown cell, she just needed to consider compromising a little. They deserved that much. Nick was bitter that after eight years she still couldn't give him a satisfactory explanation for her absence.

It was a struggle to avoid tripping over large vines sprawled on the ground as well as overgrown roots and concealed rocks. Helen seemed to manage it effortlessly as she zigzagged in an attempt to lose her trail.

Nick was conscious of the noise of the soldiers' pursuit. They were fast but almost clumsy despite being trained in tact and subtlety. They knew the dangers of a single branch snapping underfoot and yet somehow all that knowledge and training had gone out the window. Nick supposed it was the bigger goal, if they were discreet they lost Helen but he worried about what dangers the noise might draw to them.

The redhead was too focused himself in the chase to truly take in the world. It was a blur of colour, mainly shades of green and brown but there were numerous flowers and fruits to add décor to the terrain.

Helen, still a good distance ahead of her pursuers, seized an opportunity. She spied a small gap under a cluster of low hanging leaves that was at the start of a bend that indicated the start of a hill descending. She dropped instinctively, sliding under the leaves and down the muddy slope. Her knife was out before she made the manoeuvre and as she spied the stagnant water that lay below, she instinctively jammed it into a tree to slow her journey.

Helen's arm jerked with the movement but she had dug her feet in as well to lessen the blow and her slide hadn't gotten momentum yet so despite the sharp pang of pain she mercifully hadn't pulled her arm from its socket.

The slope wasn't steep, she could risk continuing the journey down on foot with enough trees to grab to steady her balance to avoid a dip in the murky waters.

The soldiers skidded to a halt where Helen had vanished. No one had seen her sudden drop and slide. They glanced about in confusion, instinctively putting their backs to one another so no one was vulnerable. At least that's what they hoped.

As Helen was preparing to stand as quietly as she could lest she lose her advantage all hell broke lose with the soldiers.

The giant snake descended from the trees above where it had blended in with vines, still as it contemplated prey until food had unwittingly stumbled in below it.

It was fast and vicious, sinking its fangs into one man's shoulder and neck with a head so big it could have remove the man's own clean off his shoulders with little effort.

The spray of gunfire was instinctive. The men were in a panic, screaming and shooting at the large, black mass of flesh that was descending on them rapidly.

All Captain Ryan could think as he aimed his rifle was that it was the biggest snake he had ever seen.

Unlike his men, Ryan waited for the opportunity. The bullets weren't doing a lot of damage to the flesh, the snake was becoming agitated not frightened.

It hissed and wrapped itself around one of the soldiers, crushing him instantly with little effort.

Nick winced at the loud crunch of bones as a gasp of death escaped the soldier.

The snake moved for the others and Ryan glimpsed its face. The eyes held nothing in them, it was just a beast acting on instinct.

Ryan aimed at a gleaming eye as big as saucer and fired.

The bullet struck, liquefying the eye in a spray of blood. Blinded in one eye and suddenly vulnerable, the snake moved for a retreat as the crack of gunfire sent more bullets its way. It moved back up to the trees, vanishing as it quickly as it had appeared, abandoning its meal as it did.

Ryan exchanged a glance with Nick.

Nick knew what the captain was thinking, what all his soldiers were thinking. They sure as hell weren't staying here searching for Helen with something like that roaming about.

Nick glanced back the way they had come, wondering how far they had run and how far they were from the anomaly.

"KADEN!"

The yell was so unexpected it caught everyone off guard.

The soldiers, two of whom were trying to tend to their bitten friend, raised their guns with a wary surprise.

"That...sounded human," Ryan voiced his thoughts doubtfully.

Had it been a trick of the wind? A distorted animal sound that seemed human but wasn't, the way cats' howling could sound like babies crying, hyenas could mimic an almost humane laughter and of course birds could even copy human speech? Hell, was it Helen? It hadn't sounded like her and why would she be yelling anyway?

They were ready to dismiss it until a scream followed.

"That's not possible," Ryan murmured warily. "Is it?" He looked to Nick for confirmation, having no sense of what era they might be in except that it was the past. He searched the jungle, trying to trace the source. It didn't seem far.

"Well we're here aren't we?" Nick pointed out. He pushed back his damp soaked, golden auburn hair and turned to the right. "It's that way," he said.

Ryan looked to the soldiers. "Mac, Watkins, get Jackson back through the anomaly, and Jenkins' body," he ordered the pair tending the wounded man. "The rest of you with me."

The soldiers nodded although it was obvious from their faces that they wanted to retreat. The snake had been huge, easily forty feet. Were there more of it and what else was here? No one wanted those questions answered.

There were no more screams, just wild, anguished sobs but they were loud enough to follow.

Ryan and Nick headed back through the trees to the right, following the ground as it began to slope downwards leading them through to a clearing where a large body of water glinted up at them. It was a murky pond with steep edges and an uncertain depth. Its most bizarre feature was the figure of a woman sitting back from its edge crying.

Ryan and Nick exchanged another dubious glance. Neither one could believe what they were seeing.

Nick looked back to the young woman and grabbed Ryan's arm suddenly.

If there had been more foliage on the ground Nick wouldn't have spotted it. Its dark flesh almost blended in with the earth it slid across and it moved so slow that it was difficult to spy but it was so large it could only be so discreet. Nick only spied it as a stray beam of sunlight struck its flesh showing a sheen of black scales.

"Great," Ryan muttered under his breath as he readied his rifle.

It was another very large snake.

It was stalking the woman, slow because it could be but if it sensed them it would move fast and she would be gone. It hadn't neared her yet but Ryan didn't doubt it could clear the distance.

"It follows vibrations and heat," Nick explained quietly. "Look we need a distraction and we need to get to her as fast as we can while that's happening."

Ryan nodded and glanced back to his men. "Hunter, Bluestone, just start shooting at the damn thing," he ordered. "A spray of bullets right in front of it so it doesn't think about continuing in that direction, kill it if you can."

"Now really-" Nick began a protest as he looked at Ryan in irritation. They were the trespassers and he couldn't even begin to consider how screwed up the past might become with all this activity.

Ryan ignored him. "Either the snake dies or she does," he said bluntly.

Ryan waved his hand down in a command for the order to proceed.

As gunfire tore up the silence the snake had been taking advantage of, Ryan moved forward, low and fast. He was down and by the suddenly shocked woman within seconds but he was wary that it wasn't fast enough.

She had turned at the gunfire, stunned and her eyes were wide in horror as she saw the giant snake raised up as it hissed in anger and tried to recoil from the spray of bullets.

"On your feet, now," Ryan ordered.

She stared up at him with blank eyes, almost entirely white as her irises and pupils shrunk back in shock.

Ryan reached down and yanked her up.

The snake sensed the vibrations and it came forward, moving hard and fast through the bullet spray, determined to get its food and now outraged that something else might be trying to steal its meal.

Ryan aimed his rifle and fired. One bullet sliced neatly through a nostril.

The woman was on her feet.

Ryan gave her a hard shove and pointed to where Cutter and the soldiers remained. "Go, go!" he ordered.

He fired again and again. He saw the black form sliding towards him, it was death, he knew it. A few inches more and he might be the one who was snake food.

A cannister flew threw the air and suddenly the jungle in front of Ryan was full of smoke. It was the unexpected distraction he needed.

Ryan turned and raced back to the slope where the others stood.

Nick's blue eyes went wide. Out of the smoke the gigantic snake came, fierce and fast as it followed Ryan and the woman, furious now as it moved with a raised head, almost gliding over the earth, passing by rocks and vines like they were nothing.

Ryan saw the look on Nick's face and his men's, he saw the guns go up and he instinctively raised a hand to the woman.

Ryan slammed the woman down hard into the earth as he made himself drop with her. It was a calculated risk, it ended their retreat and had them suddenly motionless and ready for the predator but it ended the risk of them getting shot. He had to hope the bullets would do their job. He reasoned that at least he wouldn't have long to work out if he'd made the right call.

The bullets roared overhead. Ryan's ears were ringing and his nostrils reeked with the stench of the damp earth his face was pushed into. He kept his hand down instinctively on the woman, holding her in place but she was frozen up and it was unnecessary. He felt her clothes damp beneath his palm and clinging to her flesh.

Darkness pooled over them as the shadow of the snake rose behind them. The coolness of it was all Ryan felt. There was no muscular body wrapped in scales trying to suffocate him. No fangs piercing his flesh and shredding him into oblivion.

He'd lost two men in mere minutes. He knew somehow that Jackson hadn't made it, there had been too much blood. He wondered dumbly in this moment of hell how many now were dead since this madness had started? They were trained professionals but certainly not trained for this, no one was trained for this. They were men he had led to their deaths.

The gunfire stopped but it took a moment for Ryan to realise it as his ears continued to ring.

The captain heard a soldier shouting but it was hard to make out the words. He raised his head slowly and looked forward first. The men looked wary and anxious but the terror on their faces was was lessened.

Ryan raised his head higher and glanced back. The terrain was a mess. Foliage had been crushed and forced aside, the earth was deep in a pointed track and red liquid stained a large area but the creature was gone.

Ryan moved quickly, getting to his feet and pulling the woman up with him. Gone wasn't dead, it was time to retreat.

"We need to go back," Ryan commanded. He fixed a firm glance on Nick as he pulled the woman along, daring Nick to argue for Helen.

Nick was ashen faced, shocked to silence by what he had just witnessed. The brute force and determination of the creature had been almost unrelenting. He was unnerved by the encounter and marvelled that Ryan was somehow still standing. Nick brought a small, weak smile to the surface as he nodded. "Yeah, I think you're right."

Nick glanced to the woman. She was wearing camel shorts and a cream, cotton shirt, no shoes or socks, and she was visibly soaked from head to toe. None of it gave him clues as to her identity or origin.

"Questions later surely professor," Ryan commented pointedly.

Nick nodded again, he was just as eager to leave as everyone else. Helen had made her choice to come here. She knew the way to retreat and it was up to her to choose it.

Ryan released the woman and took the lead, walking until he realised the woman wasn't moving at all. He rolled his blue eyes despairingly and retreated to her. He knew it was shell shock, he recognised the symptoms and he sympathised but he had no time for it. He was the leader, he couldn't afford the distraction but he took her by the arm anyway and pulled her along.

The woman didn't resist, she moved almost robotically, her feet taking four fast steps just to match one of Ryan's strides. If the branches and rocks underfoot were hurting her exposed soles she wasn't showing it.

Ryan knew he could palm her off to another soldier to bring or even Nick but he couldn't have them put a risk by having her as a distraction. He had chosen to help her, he had to bear the responsibility.

Ryan glanced left and right and then instinctively up before he continued on their way.

Bullet casings let them know they had arrived back to the point of the first attack.

Everyone looked instinctively up but the leaves were large and cast many shadows, and vines in the darkness bore similar shapes to serpents. It was impossible to spy out any danger.

"There's noise," Nick said reassuringly, "listen, we're safe for now."

He was right, animals of uncertain species called out to one another as they moved through the jungle.

They continued walking, ears strained for noise, wary of when the silence might come again.

Everyone froze when their path was briefly blocked by a surprising intruder. The guns were up again but no one fired.

It looked like a turtle that ambled through only it was as big as a Smart car. It paid them no heed as it continued on its journey through the jungle in search of food.

"Why is everything bigger?" a soldier lamented.

Nick watched it go in awe. It had similar colouring to turtles he'd seen in the present, muted shades of green and brown to blend in with its surroundings. Its shell was gigantic and looked impenetrable. He didn't think such a beast would be prey for too many things out here and wondered if the large snake would even be capable of crushing such a large, thick shell.

Once the giant turtle had passed they continued on their way.

The anomaly appeared in sight, its blinking lights a beacon welcoming them home to the present. Nick realised worriedly that it had shrunk and the lights were jolting fast.

"It's going to close!" he shouted.

They broke into a run instinctively. Ryan moved twice as fast as normal to account for the mute woman he pulled yet still he hesitated when he reached the lights, waiting to see his men safely through first.

They all made it through with an obvious sense of relief.

They stumbled into to a children's park area, which had been taken over by soldiers and government bureaucrats. There was a large, black sheet of tarp hiding what drawn them to the area in the first place- some kind of gigantic, prehistoric crocodile or alligator that had come through at their arrival.

It was Helen who had warned them about the anomaly. In the chaos she had escaped into it just as the crocodile had been finished off. A planned opportunity or one of luck they didn't know. It was impossible to tell what Helen actually knew about the time phenomenons and what she pretended to know. She had lied before about sabre toothed tigers and instead their had been dodos. Unfortunately and unexpectedly they had turned out to be just as fatal for someone.

Claudia Brown, standing with her arms folded, looked poised with a professional cool calm as she tried to keep her emotions from her face. She suddenly lost her stern stance as she realised that Ryan wasn't holding Helen by the arm but someone else entirely.

Claudia's arms dropped by her sides as she took a step towards them, pausing as the anomaly flickered out of sight.

"Um Captain, who is this?" Claudia asked the obvious question.

Ryan gave her a rare smile laced with dark humour. "No idea," he retorted.


	3. Chapter 3- Identity

James Lester peered in through the glass at the young woman with intrigue. Administrator of the anomaly operation, it was not exactly the job he had envisioned when he had joined the ranks of government workers. It wasn't exactly a job he was thriving at either, so far under his watch five civilians had wormed their way into the workplace and he couldn't seem to get them out of it, not even for their own good. Now here was another only he knew she was going to cause a much bigger problem for him.

Behind the horizontal window in a medical room a young woman sat alone in a chair linked up to a drip of fluids.

"Has she said anything yet?" James asked the doctor who had retreated from the room.

The doctor glanced to the young woman through the pane and shook his head. "No but maybe it's the environment," he suggested. His voice came with a Northern Irish twang.

"What environment?" James snapped as he frowned at the man. He was the fifth civilian who had badgered his way into this work.

A victim of the parasite dodos from an anomaly had carried, the doctor had been cured via surgical removal of the parasite and, given his profession, had known all too well of the abnormalities of it. James had to consider the irony that a bloody doctor of all people would get an infection from the past. They had stonewalled him for a while and then he had made threats to go public. Given he had the evidence of the parasite and as a doctor he would be considered a respectful citizen probably not prone to exaggeration, had led James to conclude that they may as well have a doctor on the team.

The doctor, Jason O'Hare, had found himself thrust into a world he had not been expecting. He had figured the government was cooking up viruses or maybe the military. Time portals bringing primordial diseases from the past to the present had not been on his radar.

"It's like a prison," Nick Cutter's blunt voice came to add to James' misery.

James turned with a frown, which deepened as he saw that Nick wasn't alone but had the full army of curious tourists with him.

Connor Temple was already darting forward to press his face up to the glass and ogle at the woman within. He had gotten barely a glimpse of her at the park before she had been ushered into a van and taken to the bowels of the Home Office.

"He's right," Dr O'Hare murmured dryly, "or a zoo," he added pointedly as he gave Connor a scolding look.

Jason was tied to Connor in a strange and terrible manner. The one who had passed on the dodo's parasite to him had been Connor's friend Tom. Passing it on had not been enough for Tom as another had remained inside him trying to dominate him before giving up and dying, taking Tom with him. Every time Jason and Connor saw one another they thought back to that terrible time. Jason still bore the physical scars whilst Connor carried the mental ones and a heavy sense of guilt for teasing Tom about the mysterious job he worked in but never disclosing enough of it to Tom. It was nosiness and jealousy that had driven Tom and his and Connor's other friend Duncan to tracking and chasing Connor, leading to the fatal encounter with a parasite carrying dodo.

"Connor she's not an exhibition," Abby Maitland scolded the eager dark haired male as she came to stand behind him.

Abby was peering through the glass too but a little more discreetly than Connor.

Connor glanced over at Abby with a bashful smile. "Sorry but come on, she is fascinating. I mean what was she doing there? How did she even get there?"

"The same way we did," Nick said, confident it had to be the only explanation.

James glanced to him and Stephen Hart, the last of the group, whose claim to being necessary was being a lab technician under Nick. As a junior shooting and fencing Olympic prospect Stephen did bring other skills James supposed but he was no military man and he was no professor either.

Stephen was just as interested in the woman as everyone else but he hung back, unwilling to view her like an animal in a cage.

"So what, she entered through an anomaly and then..." James looked at Nick for an explanation.

"Lost someone," it was Ryan who gave it as he arrived with Claudia beside him.

Ryan had been checking on his men. He had been right, Jackson had died before he had even been taken through the anomaly. Jackson and Jenkins, two more deaths to cover up, two more funerals to be arranged. Jackson had two sisters he had been close with and a girlfriend. Jenkins had a young son with an ex-girlfriend.

"She called out a name, Kaden," Captain Ryan explained calmly.

"Kaden?" Connor quipped as he glanced at Ryan with interest.

To Connor Temple the soldier was an enigma. Connor had an idea of what soldiers were from the movies and video games, battle hardy men who swore and usually had painful back stories or hidden criminal histories that had forced them into the army. He knew it was an exaggeration but Captain Ryan had still dented the image more than a little although he had created a new admiration in the army man for Connor. Ryan was mysterious after all, a man of few words, with a back story Connor still had to learn about.

"That's an odd name," Connor murmured, "what if it's a code?" he marvelled.

"It's Greek," Ryan retorted bluntly.

"How do you know that?" Stephen quipped before he could help it.

Ryan gave him a wilting look. "I've travelled," he said, still blunt.

"Greek?" Connor was back to pressing his face against the glass. "Does she look Greek? She does have a nice tan."

"Connor," Abby scorned him. She was looking too.

The woman was swarthy skinned but natural or sun induced or even a product of the bottle, it was difficult to tell.

"You know that glass is two way," Jason chided them, "she can see you watching her."

"Oh." Abby pulled back instinctively.

"She's been through a very traumatic experience," Nick reminded them in a scolding tone. He folded his arms and turned a stern blue look of disapproval on James. "And we don't know how bad it was before we found her."

James continued to frown. "Well professor," he snapped as he gestured his arms outwards, "what would you have me do? Release her to the wild?" he queried sarcastically.

"Get her out of that room at least and maybe someone should talk to her," Nick suggested, "someone nice."

"I could," Claudia offered. She stepped forward, presenting herself to Lester with a smile. "I'm a woman, she might be more willing to talk to me."

"Yeah, the stuffy bureaucrat, that will put her at ease," Stephen slammed the suggestion with a roll of his eyes.

"Stephen let's be nice," Nick murmured.

Stephen gave his boss a muted look of protest. He knew why Nick was scolding him, one had to be blind to miss the sparks darting between Nick and Claudia. Whilst Stephen was happy for Nick finding someone both after Helen's loss and after her unexpected return, he did consider because it was Claudia it presented a conflict of interests.

"He has a point," Jason spoke up. He looked weary, fed up with the bickering while the woman sat in there, perfectly unresponsive in a state of shock he wasn't sure how to cure.

Feeling Claudia's dark eyes boring into him as she awaited an explanation, Jason gave her a calm but icy gaze. It was a clinical stare he had mastered for bureaucrats who didn't want expensive but necessary surgery carried out on patients and badgered him for cheaper alternatives that simply didn't exist.

"It will be like an interrogation for her," Jason reasoned. He gestured to Ryan. "It might be even worse with him in the soldier gear but then again he did help pull it from the danger." He glanced at Nick. "What about you, you were there with her?"

"Yes," Nick admitted with a slightly awkward grin, "but I didn't really do any saving as such."

"Hmm." The doctor nodded. "Well, right now you two are as familiar as faces get for her until she can be identified." He turned his stare back on the captain. "Maybe, Captain Ryan you could lose the artillery and ask her something. You saw what she saw out there, at least you won't think her mad, that's a start."

"Oh I get it," Connor said enthusiastically. "Claudia wasn't there so she might not talk about a giant snake because she doesn't know if Claudia will believe or not but Nick and Ryan have to because they saw it too."

"Them," Ryan corrected, "there were two." Ryan gave Lester a stony stare. "And there's that social worker feeling again," he complained.

James Lester glanced at Connor pointedly as he replied, "I get that feeling every day."

James sighed and turned his stare back to Ryan. "If it gets her talking two minutes in with her won't kill you, will it captain?"

Nick and Ryan both frowned at James' word choice.

Claudia folded her arms as her eyes sparked with annoyance. "Really?" she exclaimed. "You think the captain is going to be more pleasant for her than me? I mean I'm not that bad."

Connor gave her a grin. "Actually you can be a little scary when you shout," he pointed out.

Abby stifled a giggle as she saw Claudia's look of rage. Nick was smiling too.

"I wouldn't shout at her!" Claudia snapped. "Honestly!" she exclaimed as she saw Nick's smile. She pushed a hand through her copper-brown hair and frowned at the group. "You're all being ridiculous and unreasonable. I am human you know, I can show compassion."

"Look, let's try it with the captain first," the doctor suggested. He glanced pointedly at Ryan's rifle. "Why do you even have that in here?" he queried.

"Precaution," Ryan retorted calmly.

Connor finally came away from the glass to approach the soldier with the smile of an excitable child. "Oh, can I hold it for you?" he offered. "I've always wanted to see what it's like to hold a rifle."

Ryan gazed down at him with scorn before he glanced to Nick and Stephen.

"And you're still going to have to wait," Stephen said as he stepped forward and offered out a hand.

Ryan unslung the strap but hesitated before handing it over. Every inch of him screamed that it was wrong to surrender a weapon, especially to a civilian.

Stephen gave the captain a cool, mocking stare. "I can be trusted, I know how to handle a weapon," he assured, "and I know how to keep one stationary."

Ryan nodded reluctantly as he handed it over.

"Hey why him and not me?" Connor demanded.

"Because you obviously want to test it," Abby pointed out.

"Well wouldn't you?" Connor quipped as he glanced her way. "How often do you get to hold a rifle?"

"Connor I think it's a bit big for you," Stephen teased with a grin as he swung the strap over his shoulder.

Abby eyed him up with a low key stare. It was hard not to be enamoured by the image of the muscular man now donning a gun and looking every inch the heroic rebel.

Stephen Hart was the definition of tall, dark and handsome and even after learning he had spoken of dating her in a fever despite having a girlfriend, Abby was finding it hard to turn her attraction off. She had told Connor it was just a physical thing, and believed it herself but when Stephen had told her things between him and his girlfriend weren't the same anymore she had dared to feel a flutter of hope renewed in herself.

Connor laughed at the jibe. At first his snickers for Stephen's mockery had been forced, usually because Abby was there and Connor didn't want to act like the jibes hurt but now Connor didn't mind them as much. He realised Stephen wasn't bullying him as such and his intention was never to offend, rather it was the teasing that was commonplace amongst boys and on some level Connor liked it because it made him feel like he had something like friendship with Stephen.

Ryan just rolled his pale blue eyes and looked to the doctor impatiently.

Dr. O'Hare led the way back to the heavy, steel door that guarded the room. He frowned at the keypad before keying in the six digit number to release the door.

"This is my point," he lamented before stepping into the room.

"Nothing wrong with some healthy caution," James reasoned. "She could be dangerous."

"She sure looks it," Abby remarked sarcastically. She was in agreement with the doctor, the woman shouldn't be contained like this.

"Oh you green warriors," James scorned, "you'd have me make a petting zoo for the creatures before you'd let me kill them for everyone's safety."

"Well we don't have to go that far," Stephen protested.

"They're animals, what they do is based on instinct," Nick reminded James. He pointed towards the glass pane. "That is a human being, what she does is a little more complicated."

James stared back at Nick and wondered if the man realised he was making his case for him. "That's exactly my point," he said. "We can't predict what she might do."

Connor rubbed at his bare arms and glanced at the others with another jovial look. "It's cold down here," he remarked.

Connor was right. They occupied a corridor designed with dark walls and flooring, lit with spotlights and kept a cool temperature with air conditioning. Its design was deliberately clinical as several lab rooms occupied the area.

"It certainly is," Nick murmured as he held James' stare.

In the medical room, Jason approached the young woman with care. She had looked up sharply at the intrusion and the whites of her eyes were showing again. Jason had considered a sedation if only to bring her some calm but she wasn't acting out, there had been no outbursts and no real need for it save for a higher than normal pulse.

The doctor raised his hands slightly before lowering them in what he hoped was a universal gesture of calm. He didn't even know what language she spoke. Was it Greek?

"You're alright," Jason attempted to reassure her. "I've brought someone you met in..." He hesitated over his word choice and glanced over his shoulder at the captain.

Jason regretted his choice to bring Captain Ryan as he took him in. The captain was making no effort to appear unthreatening.

"The jungle," Ryan retorted, using the monotone he almost always seemed to favour.

Jason gave him a heated look. "Could you attempt a friendlier voice," he suggested through gritted teeth.

Jason turned back to the woman with a warm smile. "We'd like to help you," he explained, "but we can't do that without knowing more about you."

The woman drew her knees up against her chest and hugged them close. The gesture was obviously defensive.

Ryan swallowed down a sigh as he wished he was anywhere but here. This wasn't his role. He kept people safe with bullets, he did not deal with the emotional nonsense that followed.

"We found you at a pond," he reminded her, "calling for a Kaden."

The name was like a switch.

The woman's head shot up sharply as she fixed a wide stare on the captain. She dropped her knees and jumped up to her feet. She came forward so fast she jerked her arm free from the drip causing liquid to spray onto the floor.

Ryan stepped past the doctor instinctively as he readied for her approach.

The woman stopped just as suddenly as she moved and looked about her surroundings in confusion. "Gone..." she said hoarsely. "They're all gone."

Jason's eyes widened. She was speaking English definitely but the accent was hard to place, London maybe but there was a trace of something else.

Ryan nodded sombrely, although he had no idea what she meant. "Is that what happened?" he queried. "Did you lose Kaden?"

She shook her head. "There was something in the water." Confusion filled her green-grey stare again. "In the pond. Ponds?" She let out a frightened gasp. "Sss...sssnn..." She started to stammer and took a step back.

"Snake?" Ryan ventured a guess.

Her back slammed hard against the wall as she stepped into it. She grasped her head with both hands and shook it hard. "So big, so big, they don't get that big," she protested. "It was a monster. Then...then...no, Kaden! Kaden! Kaden!" She started to wail the name as she continued to shake her head.

The woman dropped her hands from her head and looked at Ryan and the doctor dejectedly. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded. "Is this real?"

Ryan nodded again. "It's real," he admitted. "I'm sorry," he tacked on forcefully, thinking of the doctor's plea for him to be friendlier.

She dragged her back down slowly against the wall as she sat. Her knees were up again and she squeezed them tight. "It doesn't make sense."

Ryan took a tentative step towards her. "I know but we can explain some of it," he offered, "but you have to explain things too."

"What can I explain?" she quipped wearily.

"What happened."

"I don't know, we were in the pond, we should have been safe. Snakes like that don't live in Africa," she let out a bitter laugh, "snakes like that don't live anywhere!"

"Africa?" Ryan queried in surprise.

She nodded. "Isn't that..." She trailed off and glanced from him to the doctor. "No, of course not, it doesn't make sense but none of it does. Where are we?"

The young woman glanced about her surroundings warily. "Am I allowed to know that?"

"The Home Office in London," Ryan retorted.

Jason gave a small smile, surprised that the soldier was agreeable enough to let her know that information.

"What?" The disbelief was back in her eyes.

"Where did you come from?" Ryan quipped.

"Goue Vlaktes National Park in South Africa," she explained. "I work there."

The doctor's smile widened. Now they had something, it was information the others could key into their fancy computers and with their government access they could probably bring up staff members if she didn't give them a name.

She rubbed at her throat instinctively with her right hand. "I can still taste the water," she murmured. "It was strange, it changed, everything changed."

"Did the snake kill Kaden?" Ryan pried.

The woman's eyes started to burn with tears and she shook her head. "No, it killed everyone else, I think. I don't know," she admitted. "Todd, there was so much blood and Phoebe," she whimpered, "my little sister, it had her, it was squeezing her. Oh God is she dead? Have I lost them?"

The tears started to trickle down her cheeks and she hugged her knees so tightly her hands turned red with the effort.

"And Kaden?" Ryan stuck to the matter at hand, determined to keep her focused on it.

"There were lights in the water, they sucked us through. I thought we were dying too or hallucinating, lack of oxygen maybe. Then it was all different, we were still in the water, still in danger but it had all changed, it was a jungle."

The woman looked up at Ryan in puzzlement. "Was I hallucinating? Am I still hallucinating?"

Ryan shook his head. "No."

She gave a sad smile and dipped her head. "Shame," she murmured. "Kaden pushed me out of the pond, he was meant to follow but then it came out of the darkness. It was another impossible thing, all teeth, it moved so fast. It just came up through the water without warning and Kaden was just gone."

Ryan grimaced and thought of the gigantic crocodile they had encountered. He figured it was maybe the same type of creature but he couldn't know for sure.

"You've done very well," Jason praised her. He came to stand beside Ryan and offered her a sympathetic stare.

"I haven't," she murmured, "I haven't done well at all, my brother and sister are both dead."

"That isn't your fault," the doctor insisted.

"You weren't there," she retorted heatedly.

"No, we weren't," Ryan agreed, "but I was in that jungle, I saw the giant crocodile and the snakes. It wasn't your fault."

"I just...I can't understand what happened," she murmured.

She stared ahead at nothing with wide eyes and the captain and the doctor knew she wasn't even in the room anymore.

"I'm all alone," she said sorrowfully.

Ryan glanced at the doctor. "I don't think I can do anymore," he said awkwardly. His discomfort was clear in his blue stare.

The doctor nodded. "Maybe not at the moment. Miss, do you want to stay in this room for now?"

The woman pushed herself to her feet and fixed a serious stare on Ryan. "You had a gun," she said flatly.

He nodded. "I still do, it's just being minded temporarily."

"I want to stay with the man with the gun," she remarked firmly.

"You're safe here you know," the doctor said. "Not that you have to stay in this room," he added hastily. "What I mean is, you're safe."

"I was safe in the pond," she retorted angrily. "It came out of nowhere. Do you understand? Out of nowhere!"

Ryan nodded agreeably. "I understand," he replied in his blunt manner.

"Then you'll let me stay with someone who has a gun," she insisted.

"I need a name first," Ryan responded.

"Melina."

Ryan raised his pale blonde eyebrows as he waited for the surname.

"I don't know you," she reminded him. "And you have me in some basement prison."

"It's not a prison," Ryan answered defensively. "Anyway, you just said you wanted to go with me but you don't trust me?"

"I don't trust any of you and I don't want to go with you," she said with a hint of irritation. "I want to go with whoever has a gun."

Ryan turned and headed for the door. Melina followed pointedly along with the doctor.


	4. Chapter 4- A Dating Error

Claudia stared at the screen with disbelief. Now this was unprecedented. She glanced to the administrator who had brought it up. "Are you sure this is right?" she queried.

He nodded before clicking the mouse to select another tab. "There's this story to go with it," he explained.

Claudia looked at the grainy image of a scanned newspaper cover and paled slightly. She stepped back from the computer screen. "Thank you," she murmured awkwardly.

Claudia headed briskly for Lester's office. She took the quickest route she knew, swiping her pass at coded doors in an automatic gesture, barely registering as they opened for her. Each corridor was bright thanks to ceiling to floor glass walls, which were tinted on the outside but allowed the full brightness of the day to enter. In summer any greenhouse styled effect was banished by the discreet air con system built into the ceiling.

Claudia reached Lester's domain within minutes and hurried in without a knock.

James Lester looked up at his subordinate with a disbelief that only increased when he realised just who had ignored protocol to disturb him.

"Claudia what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.

He was seated at his desk with a handful of papers before him, flustered from the latest phone call from his superiors. Lately stress seemed to be James' default mode. No one seemed to care that he hadn't exactly trained for prehistoric animals making random appearances in the modern world. All his bosses cared was that he kept it quiet and sorted it.

"Sir, it's about Goue Vlaktes, the National Park in South Africa," Claudia began. "It closed down in nineteen-eighty-four."

James' eyes went wide with surprise. He stood up from his desk briskly and stared at Claudia as if waiting for the punchline.

"It was after a group of visitors and a park worker went missing. There was a headline suggesting an animal attack but it said whilst their clothes and traces of blood were found in the area of a pond there were no bodies. Ultimately, it was left as an unsolved mystery with a variety of theories. The paper named them," Claudia continued, "Melina Hollywell was the worker and two of the victims were her brother Kaden and sister Phoebe, the rest were friends."

James frowned as he tried to gather his thoughts together. His mind was screaming that this was impossible but another tiny, stubborn voice argued that not only was it possible but in the world of anomalies it could make sense.

"She's not from our time," Claudia murmured.

"No, it would seem not," James retorted dryly.

Claudia felt pity for the woman as she wondered what the next decision would be. It was bad enough what the woman was trying to digest- monstrous snakes and crocodiles, the death of her family and friends, and portals that had transported her but to tell her that she was over two decades out of date as well seemed unimaginably cruel. Claudia knew they had been contemplating sending her home but what was home for her in this present time? More importantly, how could they risk sending her to people who might know her when she hadn't aged in twenty years?

"What are we going to do?" Claudia queried quietly.

James gazed over at Claudia with annoyance, wondering why she thought he would have an answer to this problem so suddenly. "Well tell her I suppose," he muttered. "She'll figure it out soon enough."

Claudia resisted giving her own frown as James' vagueness irritated her. James Lester was an enigma to Claudia, at times she disliked him but it was perhaps no more than the disdain most workers felt for their superior but at other times she admired his ability to handle a seemingly impossible job. She did not always agree with his decisions but nor did she envy him being the man who had to make them. Only Nick ever seemed to have a desire for some of Lester's authority and even that was limited to what Nick did, he certainly didn't want control of Lester's staff, he would just preferred they listened to him more now and again.

"Now?" she queried.

James nodded. "No time like the present," he retorted dryly. He frowned at his pun and gave Claudia a stern stare, daring her to point it out.

Claudia just nodded, unwilling to stir James up over bad phrasing.

"Actually," James said, "I'll come too."

He placed his paperwork into a neat pile, taking care to pat and push it into alignment before he stood up. He made a show of glancing at his watch and back at the paperwork before gesturing to the door with one hand and an impatient glance.

Claudia led the way out, the subordinate until they started walking towards the basement, then they moved side by side to present a unity to the others. Claudia and James were both fans of the importance of presentation and knew it was better for them to appear on the same side. Of course Cluadia did permit her morals to sometimes have her oppose James but she tried to do so in diplomatic manner, presenting opposition as if they were merely trying to reason out both sides of an argument to come to a reasonable conclusion together. She could admit privately that sometimes Nick Cutter had her looking to her morals as well, he might not have the glib tongue of a government worker but he could be just as persuasive as one, sometimes more so.

When they entered the cool, darker quarters of the labs James was dismayed to find the tourists present. They were gathered together around a set of computer screens that Connor was seated and typing at, comparing theories and debating over what to search next as they studied a map of England with marked anomaly sites on it.

At the sound of footsteps, the group glanced over as one, Abby and Connor looked intrigued whilst Stephen was cool, offering up a neutral expression of calm. Nick's gaze was on Claudia, intense and bright as he offered a small glimpse of joy in it.

Claudia gave a small smile before trying to force some neutrality to her stare as she took in the others around Nick.

James searched the area, his head turning about impatiently as he hunted for the woman. Spying Dr O'Hare walking to the right he snapped to him, "doctor where's the patient?"

Jason, now used to James Lester's eternally brash, blunt manner that was usually coupled with a weary, woe is me, looked to him with a dull calm.

"She needed fluids and nourishment," he retorted.

James' frown deepened as he glared at the man, waiting for him to continue.

The doctor smiled and gestured with the thumb of his left hand to a door just behind him and to the left. "She's in the tea room with Captain Ryan."

"Still with the man with the gun," Claudia murmured. She tried not to sound offended but she couldn't understand why anyone would willingly pick Ryan over her as a companion to find sanity in the mess of a world of anomalies. She was a listener and good with explanations, Ryan was blunt, a soldier not a nurse or a therapist, he wasn't going to want to cradle and reassure some traumatised young woman.

Jason's smile widened as he saw the annoyance in Claudia's brown gaze. He nodded.

"Yes, I suppose if I'd encountered a giant snake and crocodile that had devoured my family members I might be seeking out someone good with weapons too," he reasoned sardonically.

Claudia stiffened slightly as her gaze darted over to Nick. The golden-copper haired man had been in the jungle too, surely he was more appealing than Captain Ryan, he had a friendlier attitude and was sympathetic and kind and good enough with a gun when he had the option of using one. Alright, it tended to be a tranquillizer gun in his case but still, for a university professor he was quite good when it came to defending his colleagues from primordial beasts.

"Let's tell her the news," James remarked moodily.

James headed for the door the doctor had gestured to, accompanied by Claudia who was starting to think James delivering the news was not a good idea. She gave Nick a final fleeting glance prompting him to head over to them.

"Do you have some news?" Nick pried curiously.

James halted with a sigh and glanced over his shoulder at the man with a scornful stare. "It's private Cutter, the girl deserves to know before everyone else."

Claudia glanced at James with mild surprise. She didn't think he had the compassion in him and agreed that the woman deserved to hear the news without an audience.

Claudia gave Nick an apologetic smile. "We'll tell you after," she assured, "but James is right, we should deliver this news privately, it's only fair."

Nick nodded as his irritated gaze softened quickly with Claudia's gaze. "Alright. Just remember she's already been through a lot in one day," he cautioned.

James rolled his eyes at this before turning back to the door.

Claudia nodded before heading after James.

The tea room on the other side was small with four wide tables capable of fitting six people each. There were three vending machines- snacks, cold drinks, and pre-packaged refrigerated snacks, and a coffee and tea point with disposable cups, a milk jug and two tall cannisters of hot water. At one table in the middle Captain Ryan and Melina Hollywell sat opposite each other in silence.

Melina's sharp, grey-green eyes darted up at the noise of the door opening, wary as she took in Claudia and James. She sat with her arms folded, tense and uncomfortable as she watched them approach.

Captain Ryan didn't bother looking over, he recognised the sound of Claudia's heels on the tiles and the flat slap of James' expensive soles.

James and Claudia halted at the side of the table.

"Captain Ryan, could you give us a minute please?" James queried politely.

"No," Melina protested sharply even as the blonde captain made to stand. She turned a hostile stare up to James. "If he goes I'm going, I don't trust this place or anything going on right now. I don't know that a giant snake isn't coming out of nowhere again," she added as her eyes filled with a wild panic, "and I'm not sitting here like a duck waiting to find out, not without some kind of weapon."

Ryan's lip curled up slightly in a small hint of a grin at this. He knew he should be offended at her referring to him as a weapon but he took it as a compliment. If she thought he could protect her from giant snakes appearing from nowhere then he was doing his job right.

"Right and when the captain's working day ends are you going to follow him home?" James sneered. He held up his palm to her and waved in a dismissive gesture. "Never mind. We have news for you and I think it would be better you hearing it in private but if you don't mind the captain here for it that's fine."

Claudia, who had been looking at James with mild scorn when he sneered at the woman, glanced back to her inquisitively. She couldn't even begin to imagine what was going through Melina's mind, how did one process all this? She considered her own indoctrination to this world, summoned from her government post to James' office in the Home Office, excited as she contemplated a promotion. James had been practical with his explanation, pacing the room with his hands behind his back advising her curtly that proof would come first hand to her soon enough as he discussed animals of an antiquated nature and a curious, scientific matter involving the laws of time that they had to investigate. James had been vague, embarrassed that she would laugh in his face probably, and he had allowed her to face the proof when Nick, Abby, Stephen and Connor all did. Sure, Claudia had been given a slight advantage with newspaper articles and blurred photographs to ponder but nothing matched up to meeting a Scutosaurus and almost getting devoured by a Gorgonopsid. After that, Claudia was committed to her new role.

Melina shrugged. "Go ahead, you're strangers to me the news isn't going to be personal."

"Melina," Claudia addressed her gently before James could snap, "what date is it?"

Melina gave the red haired woman an odd look and frowned. "That's an unusual question. I asked him about the wrappers." She nodded to Ryan before gesturing to the vending machines. "They're all different, I mean it's been six months since I was in England but they can't all have changed so much."  
"I don't know what they looked like to you before today," Ryan retorted calmly. "And I can't say I study crisp packets or chocolate wrappers so if there has been a change, it wouldn't be on my radar."

Claudia gave James a sideways glance, wondering if it was to their advantage that Melinda already had suspicions. "So what date is it?" she repeated.

"It should be the seventeenth of August, nineteen-eight-four," Melina answered carefully as she cocked her head slightly at Claudia, her voice full of doubt and suspicion.

Claudia's brown gaze filled with sympathy as she recognised the date as the date given in the newspaper of the grisly disappearances that had led to Goue Vlaktes being permanently closed just a week later.

"It's the twenty-second of September, two thousand and seven," Claudia explained, taking care to emphasise the year.

Melina was silent as she kept her eyes on Claudia but her gaze became unfocused.

"Do you understand?" James queried rudely.

"I...I missed the millennium," Melina said dumbly, "I..." She shook her head. "But it's not possible." She looked at the pair in puzzlement and pointed down to the table with one finger. "This is the future?"

"It's our present," James corrected.

"Same difference surely," she retaliated hotly. "No." She shook her head again. "No, it's not right. There was a jungle and now here, none of this is right. What the hell are you trying to say happened or is happening? I've travelled through the time?"

"You came through an anomaly," Claudia attempted to explain. "It's a portal that opens up to different times and places."

Melina just continued to shake her head. "None of this makes sense," she said quietly. "It was those lights you mean, under the water." She glanced across the table to Ryan this time. "Is that where that thing came from? Did it travel too?"

Ryan nodded. "An anomaly must have opened where you and your friends were, the snake came out and you and your brother went in."

Tears budded at Melina's eyes at the mention of Kaden. "Then you all came through one from here to the same place?" she queried.

Tom nodded. "Yes, and we brought you back through."

"So, can I go back?" she quipped hopefully.

"The anomalies only stay open for so long," Ryan answered carefully.

"We are still studying them," Claudia interjected a little more hopefully.

"Studying them," Melina repeated slowly. She glanced up to her with a frown. "This isn't odd in this time?"

"Oh it is," James chimed in bitterly, "believe me. Only a few select people are meant to know about it."

James' frown let Melina know that she wasn't meant to be one of those people.

"Are there others like me?" Melina queried.

"No, you're the first," James retorted, he added bitingly, "and hopefully the last."

"And they say it's good to be first," Melina grumbled as she sagged back against her chair, "well I'm not feeling good."

Melina's gaze fell on the table once more. "Thirty-three years," she murmured weakly. "Then...my parents, they might not even..." She paused as pain filled her gaze. "What have they gone through, all their children...am I marked as dead somewhere? This isn't right!" she cried out suddenly.

Claudia tensed at the shouting in surprise.

"Surely it can be fixed," Melina complained, "surely I can go back through one of these things. Maybe, if it's time travelling, just before it happened."

She pushed her hands up through her dark hair and shook her head yet again. "It doesn't seem real but I don't think my worst nightmares could have imagined this. I didn't want to go swimming, I should have said something, done something. This can't be inevitable, not if there's time travel."

"It doesn't work that way," Ryan warned as he guessed at her thoughts. "The portals open to prehistoric times but one appearing in your time suggests they're not as new as we think, maybe they've always been around, a window to the past."

"Well I want one to my past damn it!" Melina snapped at him with a glower. "I don't understand, you say this happens here, why can't it be that way?"

Ryan frowned. He didn't really have an answer and was surprised by the time she seemed to have come from. To him the anomalies appeared in this time only with a link to a time older than ancient, he had never imagined under right now that the anomalies had appeared throughout time to other humans giving them the same wondrous and dangerous link to a time of reptilian mammals, dinosaurs and creatures so old their buried remains still hadn't been discovered yet. He did not believe there was any other way to it, that a portal might open up giving them a glimpse of the Victorians or the Romans or the Vikings, no it was the pre-man past always as far as Ryan had reasoned.

"It just can't," he answered bluntly.

He realised he was wrong, in the Permian landscape, in a time long before man there had been signs of humanity- a camera, an abandoned lunch box and a skeleton. Cutter's wife had been on the camera but she couldn't or wouldn't explain. It had all unnerved Ryan though he would never admit it, it had just felt wrong. Time meddling, that's what it was and another reason why civilians shouldn't be involved in this.

"You're lying," Melina hissed back at him with a glower.

"Look," James interrupted in a pragmatic tone, "right now we have no knowledge of an anomaly that would take you home. You're out of time and I have to ask, what are we going to do with you?"


End file.
